Demonstrative systems in the HighlandEast Cushitic‐Gurage contact zone

Ronny  Meyer  &  Yvonne  Treis( INALCO ‐/CNRS ‐LLACAN)

47TH ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE  NORTH  ATLANTIC  CONFERENCE  ON  AFROASIATIC  LINGUISTICS,  24 ‐26   JUNE  2019,  PARIS

1. IntroductionDISTRIBUTION,  CLASSIFICATION,  EARLIER  WORKS,  FOCUS  OF  THE  STUDY…

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1.1. Contact zone

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• Earlier works on language contact in this area by Crass & Meyer, e.g. (2007) on deictics, copulas and focus

1.2. Language classification

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based on Hetzron (1972; 1977)

1.2. Language classification

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based on Tosco (2000)

1.3. Sources and Focus• Chapters on demonstratives in grammatical descriptions of Gurage and HEC (and related) languages

• Some dedicated works on demonstratives (most M.A. theses): Dereje (2013) on Hadiyya, Dukamo (2014) on Sidaama, Diriba (2013) on Zay, Getatchew (1967) on Amharic

• Own research: Meyer (2010) on Muher demonstratives in space and discourse, Treis (forthc. a) on presentatives in HEC, Treis (forthc. b) on manner and related demonstratives in Kambaata

• Focus of this study: Exophoric and (to a lesser extent) endophoric use of demonstratives

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2. Demonstrative systems compared2.1.  DEICTIC  DEGREES,  2.2.  MORPHOSYNTACTIC  TYPES,  2.3.  ONTOLOGICAL  CATEGORIES  (ESP.  MANNER)

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2.1. Deictic degrees

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Deictics degrees: Gurage I• 2-term system (PROX – DIST) most common:

Zay, Wolane (East Gurage – EG)Kistane, Mesqan, Endegegn (Gunnän Gurage – GG)

• 3-term system (PROX – MED – DIST): Muher (GG)

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Deictics degrees: Gurage II• 4-term system: Gumer (GG) (Völlmin 2017: 206, 213)

Distinction not entirely clear: xa further away than za(x) and expressing ‘the other in the same surrounding’

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Deictics degrees: Gurage III• So far: speaker-centered systems• Reference to entities far from speaker and near to addressee is expressed by 3rd

person independent personal pronoun (cf. also Amharic)

• lit. “Take him!” = ‘Take the one far from me (speaker) and close to you (addressee)!’ • Reported for East Gurage (Zay, Wolane), Mesqan, Muher

Most Ethio-Semitic languages outside the zone: 2-term system; see Geez, Tigre, Tigrinya (North ES), Amharic, Harari (Transversal ES)

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Deictics degrees: HEC I• 2-term system (PROX – DIST): Gedeo, Burji• 3-term system: (PROX – DIST – CNTR): Oromo (LEC)*, K’abeena• 3-term system (PROX – MED – DIST/CNTR): Libido• 3-term system (PROX – MED – DIST): Hadiyya• 4-term system (PROX – MED – CNTR – DIST): Kambaata, Alaaba• 4-term system (PROX1 – PROX2 – MED– DIST): Sidaama

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*NB: Oromo variety in contact with Gurage not described!

Deictics degrees: HEC II• ‘this/that other one’ (CNTR): Reported for/observed in Kambaata, Alaaba,

K’abeena, Libido (HEC), Oromo (LEC), Gumer (Gunnän Gurage), Gamo* (Omotic)KAMBAATA

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* Hayward & Eshetu (2014: 115) speak of “allogenous” demonstratives in Gamo (Omotic), define them as “direct[ing] attention away from the expected object of discussion” and translate them as ‘the other’.

2.2. Morphosyntactic types

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Morphosyntactic types: Gurage I• Adnominal vs. pronominal demonstratives: not clearly distinguished, but pronouns

can have additional nominal morphology

• Gunnän Gurage (except Kistane and Endegegn): adnominal = pronominal

• East Gurage (Zay, Wolane): adnominal + gender/number + definiteness > pronominal

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Morphosyntactic types: HEC I• Adnominal vs. pronominal demonstratives are usually formally distinguished in

HEC, pronouns are either nominalized adnominal forms or distinct paradigms

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Kambaata

Morphosyntactic types: Gurage II• No dedicated place demonstratives in Gunnän Gurage: Regular demonstratives are

combined with affixes encoding location, i.e. bä- (LOC) and/or -e(t)/-ät ‘place, vicinity’

• Dedicated or not straightforwardly composite place demonstratives in East Gurage• Zay: jihiij/jahaaj ‘this/that’ but: yux/yax ‘here/there’• Wolane: ʔɨnnä/ʔannä ‘this/that’ but bibbi/babbi ‘here/there’

• Other ES languages: dedicated forms in North ES (Geez, Tigre, Tigrinya)

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Morphosyntactic types: HEC II• Languages with only composite place demonstratives, use of case-marked

“regular” (object, person etc.) demonstratives, Kambaata, Alaaba, K’abeena (cf. Gurage language Muher)

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Morphosyntactic types: HEC III• Languages with one/some dedicated place demonstrative(s) that is/are not generated

on the basis of “regular” demonstratives and sometimes not even similar to them:

• Languages with one or more place demonstrative(s) (restricted case marking potential), e.g. Libido ke ‘here’ (cf. ku, ka ‘this (NOM, ACC)’)

(Crass n.d.; see also Hadiyya, Gedeo, Burji; Oromo)

See also in Oromo (LEC): acci ‘there’ (cf. suni, sana ‘that (NOM, ACC)’, asi ‘here’ (cf. xuni, xana ‘this (NOM, ACC))

(Owens 1985: 87; Gragg 1982: 6)

• Separate paradigms of fully-inflecting place demonstratives in Sidaama: kawa ‘here’ (PROX1), hakka ‘here’ (PROX2), kaa’a ‘there’ (MED), ka’’a ‘there far’ (DIST)

(Dukamo 2014: 30f, Kawachi 2007: 190)

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Morphosyntactic types: Gurage IIIPresentative demonstratives not much discussed in the literature• Muher: presentative construction consists of DEM-FOC-COP(-DEM)

Other presentatives• Wolane: invariable presentative

• Zay: deictic base jaa- combines with verbal suffixes agreeing in gender and number with the addressee (cf. HEC Hadiyya: number of the addressee)

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Morphosyntactic types: HEC IV• Presentative demonstratives all over HEC (Treis forthc. b), in predicative function (but

rarely with copula), take nominative subjects, not always a presentative morpheme segmentable, based/formally similar to nominative demonstratives

• Hadiyya: 4 presentative forms, PROX.M, PROX.F, MED.M, MED.F• Libido: 6 presentative forms, composite (Crass n.d.) • Kambaata: 12 (+12) presentative forms

(marked for gender, number, deictic degree)

• Sidaama: 1 invariant presentative, Gedeo, Oromo (LEC): 2 gender-neutral presentatives (PROX VS. DIST)

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2.3. Ontological categories

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Manner demonstratives: Gurage• Ontological categories: persons, objects, events, places, times, manner, quality, degree etc.

• Composite manner demonstratives: demonstrative base plus similative, lit. ‘like this’ in Wolane(EG), Kistane, Mesqan, Endegegn (GG) – see also other ES languages (except Tigre, Tigrinya ?)

• Non-composite, dedicated manner demonstratives: Muher (GG): 1 dedicated manner DEM, Zay(EG) and Gumer (GG): proximal vs. distal manner DEM

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PROX = exophoric

DIST = endophoric

Manner demonstratives: HEC• Non-composite manner DEMs in all HEC languages, reduction/neutralisation of

deictic distinctions; if 2 manner DEMs, then semantic component of distance lost; no, vague, or fair resemblance to other demonstratives

• Hadiyya: kíde (~ PROX), less common: ’eéde (~ MED)• Libido: kidi (~ PROX), less common: hidi (~ MED/DIST) (Crass n.d.: 465)

• Sidaama: togo (~ PROX1), hatto (~ PROX2) • Kambaata hitt-íta, K’abeena hitti, non-composite but similar to medial DEM• Gedeo: iitta, non-composite but similar to distal DEM (in 2-term system)• Burji: ungu, no formal resemblance to other DEM

• Composite: Oromo akkana, akkasi ‘like this’, contains akka- ‘like’ (similative)24

3. Summary and outlook

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Summary and outlook• Areally relevant feature: 2-term (speaker-centered) deictic systems common in

ES outside of the HEC/Gurage zone; ES inside the zone: larger systems, i.e. + medial or + contrastive

• Areally relevant feature: non-composite manner demonstratives

• Presentatives of various types (demonstrative and/or verbal) detected in the HEC/Gurage zone, but no contact-induced distribution > presentatives are generally under-researched in Ethiopian languages

• Dedicated/non-composite place demonstratives attested in the HEC/Gurage zone, but no contact-induced distribution can be detected

• We lack: (i) studies of demonstrative other than adnominal and pronominal, and, even more important, (ii) corpus studies on the use of demonstratives

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Appendix

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SourcesAmharic: Getatchew (1967), Ronny Meyer (fieldwork data)Alaaba: Schneider-Blum (2007, 2009) Burji: Tesfaye (2015), Wedekind (2008), (Sasse 1982)Endegegn: Yohannes (2015)Gedeo: Gasparini (1994), Eyob (2016)Geez: Tropper (2002) Gumer: Völlmin (2017) Hadiyya: Sim (1989), Dereje (2013), Tadesse (2015) Harari: Beniam (2013) Kambaata: Yvonne Treis (fieldwork data), Treis (2008)K’abeena: Crass (2005) Kistane: Bedilu (2010), Leslau (1968) Libido: Crass (2017, n.d.)Mesqan: Ousman (2015) Muher: Meyer (2010) Oromo: Owens (1985), Gragg (1982) Sidaama: Kawachi (2008), Anbessa (2000), Dukamo (2014), Kjell Magne Yri (pers. comm.)Tigre: Raz (1983) Tigrinya: Kogan (1997), Praetorius (1871) Wolane: Ronny Meyer (fieldwork data), Meyer (2006) Zay: Ronny Meyer (fieldwork data), Meyer (2005), Diriba (2013)

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References I• Anbessa Teferra. 2014. Sidaama (Sidaamu Afoo). München: Lincom Europa.• Bedilu Wakjira Debela. 2010. Morphology and verb construction types of Kistaniniya. Trondheim: NTNU.• Beniam Mitiku Cherinet. 2013. Harari: a descriptive grammar. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (PhD Dissertation).• Crass, Joachim. no date. Libido texts. Unpublished ms.• Crass, Joachim. 2005. Das K’abeena. Deskriptive Grammatik einer hochlandostkuschitischen Sprache. Köln: Köppe.• Crass, Joachim. 2017. Similarity and related functions in Libido. In Yvonne Treis & Martine Vanhove (eds.), Similative and equative constructions: a cross-

linguistic perspective, 387–417. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.• Crass, Joachim & Ronny Meyer (eds.). 2007. Deictics, copula and focus in the Ethiopian convergence area. Köln: Köppe.• Dereje Adane. 2014. Deixis in Hadiyya. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (MA Thesis).• Diriba Kumsa. 2013. Deixis in Zay. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (MA Thesis).• Dukamo Duguna. 2014. Documentation of the form and function of Sidaama demonstratives. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (MA Thesis).• Eyob Kelemework. 2016. A grammar of Gedeo, a Cushitic language of Ethiopia. Hyderabad: Osmania University (PhD Dissertation).• Gasparini, Armido. 1994. Grammatica gede’o. Tieste: Università di Trieste.• Getatchew Haile. 1967. Demonstrative pronouns in Amharic. Journal of Ethiopian Studies 5(1). 9–12.• Gragg, Gene. 1982. Oromo dictionary. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.• Hayward, Richard J. & Eshetu Chabo. 2014. Gamo-English-Amharic dictionary. With an introductory grammar of Gamo. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.• Hetzron, Robert. 1972. Ethiopian Semitic: studies in classification. Manchester: Manchester University Press.• Hetzron, Robert. 1977. The Gunnän-Gurage languages. Napoli: Istituto Orientale di Napoli.• Kawachi, Kazuhiro. 2007. A grammar of Sidaama (Sidamo), a Cushitic language of Ethiopia. New York: University at Buffalo (PhD Dissertation).• Kogan, Leonid. 1997. Tigrinya. In Robert Hetzron (ed.), The Semitic languages, 424–445. London & New York: Routledge.• Leslau, Wolf. 1968. Ethiopians speak: studies in cultural background. Part III: Soddo. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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References II• Meyer, Ronny. 2005. Das Zay: Deskriptive Grammatik einer Ostguragesprache (Äthiosemitisch). Köln: Köppe.• Meyer, Ronny. 2006. Wolane: descriptive grammar of an East Gurage language (Ethiosemitic). Köln: Köppe.• Meyer, Ronny. 2010. The use of Muher demonstratives for references in space and discourse. Afrika und Übersee 91. 161–202.• Ousman Shafi Awol. 2015. Descriptive grammar of Mesqan. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (PhD Dissertation).• Owens, Jonathan. 1985. A grammar of Harar Oromo (Northeastern Ethiopia). Hamburg: Buske.• Praetorius, Franz. 1871. Grammatik der Tigriñasprache in Abessinien. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.• Raz, Shlomo. 1983. Tigre grammar and texts. Malibu: Undena Publications.• Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 1982. An etymological dictionary of Burji. Hamburg: Buske.• Schneider-Blum, Gertrud. 2007. A Grammar of Alaaba. Köln: Köppe.• Schneider-Blum, Gertrud. 2009. Alaaba. In Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (ed.), Coding participant marking: construction types in twelve African languages, 55–96.

Amsterdam: John Benjamins.• Sim, Ronald. 1989. Predicate conjoining in Hadiyya: A head-driven PS grammar. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh (PhD Dissertation).• Tadesse Sibamo. 2015. Documentation and description of Hadiyya. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (PhD Dissertation).• Tesfaye Baye Assefa. 2015. A descriptive grammar of Burji. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (PhD Dissertation).• Tosco, Mauro. 2000. Cushitic overview. Journal of Ethiopian Studies 33(2). 87–121.• Treis, Yvonne. 2008. A grammar of Kambaata. Part 1: phonology, nominal morphology, and non-verbal predication. Köln: Köppe.• Treis, Yvonne. forthcoming a. Similative and equative demonstratives in Kambaata. In: Chamoreau, Claudine & Yvonne Treis (eds.). Comparaisons d’égalité

et de similitude et expression de la simulation. Special issue of Faits de Langues 51: 175-201.• Treis, Yvonne. forthcoming b. Presentative demonstratives in Kambaata from a Cushitic perspective. In: Leblic, Isabelle & Lameen Souag (eds.). Du terrain

à la théorie. Les 40 ans du LACITO. Villejuif: LACITO. • Tropper, Josef. 2002. Altäthiopisch. Grammatik des Geʿez mit Übungstexten und Glossar. Münster: Ugarit.

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References III• Völlmin, Sascha. 2017. Towards a grammar of Gumer. Phonology and morphology of a Western Gurage variety. Zürich: University of Zürich (PhD

Dissertation).• Wedekind, Klaus. 2008. Gedeo dictionary. Unpublished ms.• Yohannes Adigeh. 2015. Descriptive grammar of Endegagn. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University (PhD Dissertation).

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